Tape printing devices capable of printing a desired character string on the surface of a print sheet of print tape (including a strippable sheet and the print sheet having an adhesive layer previously formed on its back which are stacked up to be strippable) are widely known. Such a tape printing device has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. HEI01-163073. Tape printing devices of this type provide high usability to users since a title, caption, etc. can be printed on the tape surface quickly and beautifully and the print sheet which has been printed on can be stuck on the spine of a file, videotape, etc. Due to such high usability, tape printing devices are widely used for office use, home use, etc.
Print tapes used for such tape printing devices are available in various widths and types (normal print tape, label tape, etc.). The label tape is formed of a strippable sheet and an adhesive print sheet (having an adhesive layer formed on its back) which are stacked up to be strippable. On the print sheet, dividing lines, for dividing label areas as the targets of printing (parts to become labels) from other peripheral areas, are formed previously.
When normal print tape is used, the print tape has to be fed a preset distance after the printing in order to cut off part of the print tape that has been printed on, since a tape cutter is apart from a printing head. Therefore, tape printing devices are generally configured to feed the print tape a preset distance when a prescribed key of the device is manipulated.
Meanwhile, when label tape is used, the printing has to be executed only on the label areas of the label tape. Therefore, the label tape after the printing on a label area is automatically fed until the front end of the next label area faces the printing head. In this state after the automatic tape feeding, if the user manipulates the prescribed key and the print tape is fed a preset distance, the printing head does not face the front end of the label area any more, resulting in wastage of labels in the printing. To avoid the problem, the tape printing device of the aforementioned patent document is configured not to execute the tape feeding for the preset distance when label tape is used, even if the prescribed key is manipulated.